Transformers: Age of Extinction Super Bowl Trailer: Five Questions Raised

by Jamie Lovett | February 3, 2014

During Super Bowl XLVIII, fans got their first real look at Transformers: Age of Extinction. The trailer raised a few questions for fans, which we’re going to address to the best of our abilities right here.

Who Is That Giant Robot? - The trailer starts off with a gigantic robot following behind Shockwave. So who – or what – is this monstrosity? The easy money is on Trypticon, the Decepticon’s original City-bot. City-bots are, as you might have guessed, Transformers that are the size of an entire city and can sometimes function as one. In the comics and cartoons, there are rarely if ever actually shown to be this size, presumably for logistical reasons. So why is this Trypticon and not one of the other city-bots? Well, Trypticon is designed to be the Decepticon’s mobile assault platform, which seems to be the role he’s fulfilling in the trailer. On top of that, his alternate form is that of a massive Tyrannosaurus, making him the perfect adversary for Grimlock and the Dinobots.

Where Are Those Spaceships Coming From? - There’s a brief clip in the trailer of several ships flying through space, presumably on their way to Earth. So who do these ships belong to? It seems likely that they would be from Cybertron, so perhaps the destruction of the master pillar in Dark of the Moon destroyed the planet and these are refugee ships? Or maybe the planet survived and these are ships bringing reinforcements to the Earth front of the war? Perhaps it has more to do with the technology that Cade and Tessa discover that seems to attract everyone’s attention during the film?

How Does Optimus Prime Find Himself In This Situation? - At one point during the trailer, we get a shot of Optimus Prime hanging upside down in what looks like the enemy camp. Optimus Prime doesn’t go down easy, so how exactly does he end up in such a demeaning position? Maybe the Decepticons have enlisted the aid of a Wampa?

Why is This Strafe and Not Swoop? - So this one doesn’t come directly from the trailer, but shots of toy packaging have confirmed that the crazy two-headed Pteranodon seen in the trailer is not Swoop, the Dinobot who filled that role in the cartoon, but Strafe, who was one of the Technobots. It seems a strange, arbitrary decision to make, though it wouldn’t be the first time that Hollywood has made a strange and arbitrary decision while adapting source material. Could there be more to it? Maybe the film will also have Computron, the Autobot's combiner. Seems a longshot, but sometimes that’s what you get when you try to apply rhyme and reason to these things.

Dinobots: Friends or Foes? - When Strafe makes his appearance in the trailer, he is flying directly at Bumblebee. It’s unclear, however, whether he’s attacking the Autobot or trying to save him from an unfortunate fall. So will the Dinobots, some of them at least, be enemies of the Autobots during the film, or are they working together? Probably both. In the cartoon, the Dinobots begin as overly aggressive and unintelligent, making them a problem for the Autobots, but it’s nothing a little tweaking doesn’t fix. In the film, I expect we’ll see some Dinobot on Autobot action when the two factions first meet, but then the inevitable team-up to take down the real enemy will follow.